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Hi all.

For the past few weeks, Behindwoods is flooded with lot of articles comparing noted actors, Kamal Hassan and Rajni Kanth. I post this article considering the point from Mr. Arasan’s article which says, “Kamal Hassan should follow Rajni Kanth”. This is more like an eye opener for all including Mr.Arasan and not a ‘reply’ to him.

First of all, Rajnikanth’s success, as he himself admits is mainly because of his ‘wise’ choice of path. He chose a path that suits him and that’s out of question. Everybody who wants to make a mark can value his strengths and work hard towards his success. But there is ambiguity in the decision: who is better and who should follow who.

Fans usually weigh an actor with respect to two factors. Kamal Hassan and Rajni Kanth are always good friends. But their fans always consider them as rivals and fight with each other that one is greater than the other. The only reason for this quarrel is both of these groups value different factors to accept success.

Rajni Kanth’s fans have two reasons to claim the decision in their favour. One of the reasons is, ‘the whole world accepts his stardom. He has given most number of hits. His films have been the best grosser. He has fulfilled the basic expectation from an actor and that’s all enough’. And the other reason is, ‘he is a noble personality who inspires everyone’.

Kamal Hassan’s fans have many reasons to claim the verdict in their favour and they are, ‘He is more talented; He has bagged the most number of awards; he is still in competition though his path is risky’.

While these are the arguments from the fans, it is the responsibility of a common man to balance these views and arrive at a decision. Views can ignore ‘truth’ whereas, judgement should not. Let us consider some truths comparing the career of both to judge who is better and who follows who.

In the view of a fan, an actor need not follow any ethics in his profession. Nor he needs to restrict himself from having compromises. A fanatic would claim that an actor need not necessarily support new faces and if he does so, it is just an added advantage that makes him great. A fan will be satisfied if he is usual!

But a judgement should be in favour of someone who proves to be great all through his life. An actor who succeeds overcoming risks, avoiding compromises and gives room for new faces is arguable the best and he who is usual is always usual. A fan need not accept this; but the truth should.

Kamal Hassan in his career has never made compromises like Rajni Kanth made in Enthiran and politics. When Enthiran was dropped by a company, he opted to another and that is not a mistake. But the following events which received light in the past few days show that, Rajni Kanth as a ‘noble man’ has compromised to revive his project. He has also failed to stop his fans when they involve in animal slaughter when he was fighting with death. He continues to be silent regarding his political entry while a young actor like Ajith had guts to disband his fan base when it went out of control. He also forgot his responsibility to stop the media in recording his voting right. This is just because, he knows that audience is more concerned about the exposure and not the being.

Whereas, Kamal Hassan never has accepted to compromise. Many of his dream projects are in shelves. His one movie that looks like a compromise too had many options. He wants his fans to be rational. He is more concerned about the ethics and rules while voting and paying taxes. And at last, he never cares about his exposure to the people and only concentrates in his being. Hence reality shows that he is noblest of the actors. Every Actor like Vijay, Vishal, Dhanush have been under ethical compromise except Kamal Hassan and his career speaks for himself.

While every actor including Vikram and Surya gives a commercial movie to save their market, Kamal Hassan alone makes ‘original’ experiments. But, media speaks only about his failures and inspired movies. Mr. Arasan asks him, why he works hard when he can get success without any movement. It is not surprising. Every normal human being hates risks and he will be advising the greats! Clearly this is a curse to our country.

Who follows who? To answer this question, we should consider some of the happenings in the past.

When asked about whether there will be punch dialogues in Rana, Ravikumar has replied that, Punch dialogues have become outdated.

Actors like Rajni Kanth, Vijay, Vishal, Arya, Dhanush, Silambarasan etc who were previously concentrating in commercial cinema and a super star image, have started to experiment. Vijay’s continuous failure has replied to those who claim that audience expect only commercial cinema. Vishal has opened his heart in Vijay TV’s interview that, the audience took him for granted and that’s why he differed from his usual formula.

Though many low budget movies succeeded in the box office, the films that follow suit fails miserably. This shows that audience never expect the directors to repeat anything and expects to deliver different even in low budget ventures.

The same audience who were ‘OK’ with inspired versions of Hollywood movies have started to demand for originality. (Kamal Hassan’s ‘ignored’ original scripts will be in demand one day. And that day, everyone will understand that, it was not his mistake but the producers)

Now let us recall what Kamal Hassan said in his 50 years facilitation.

Kamal Hassan was the only actor who initiated almost everything in cinema. He was the one who gave surprise packages to audience when they never ask for. He was the one who worked for free, to make low budget experimentations like Mahanadhi. He was the one who proves to be nobler than any other actor by conducting many welfares and donating his body (which no actor followed even after many years). He was the one who among many biggies, has a big heart to say, “Devisriprasad is my ‘guru’ for getting this award (Neela vaanam). He is the one who gives chances to new faces and still manages to be in the hunt.

He is the only actor who forced Rajni Kanth to differ from his usual path by changing the taste of Tamil Audience! And at last, I pity on those who still haven’t sensed that, Rajnikanth has already started following Kamal Hassan!